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United States of America
The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the US, the USA, or America) is a federal presidential constitutional republic comprising 81 states and numerous territories on Earth and throughout local space. The territory of the United States on Earth stretches across North America from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, with a number of extra-continental territories (Australia, New Zealand, various Pacific islands, Greenland, Iceland, Britain, Ireland, et al). Colonies in space include a number of orbital habitats, settlements on Luna, Mars and Venus, industrial outposts in the asteroid belt and Jovian systems, and a few extrasolar exploratory missions. With more extraterrestrial colonies than any other organization and a population of over 3.8 billion people, the United States is the largest nation in known history by total area, and third largest by population. The United States is also the most ethnically diverse nation in existence, a fact owed to over three hundred years of territorial expansion and mass immigration of aliens (national and planetary) as well as the evolution and societal integration of bionic and synthetic life. The nation was founded by union of thirteen North American colonies of the Kingdom of Great Britain. On 07/04/1776, after more than a year of war with their parent nation, the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, announcing the new status of the thirteen colonies as thirteen sovereign states loosely confederated. With the assistance of France and Spain, the newly United States went on to defeat Great Britain in 1783, earning their independence and a large land cession in the Treaty of Paris. The modern government of the United States was formed by the US Constitution, adopted by the Philadelphia Convention on 09/17/1787 and ratified in 1788. The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation as the supreme law of America, making the union a single centrally governed nation comprising many states. The first ten amendments to the Constitution are collectively known as the Bill of Rights, and were ratified in 1791 for the protection of many fundamental civil liberties. The United States would spend the remainder of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries on a vigorous campaign of territorial expansion across North America. In formality, this was effected through land trades and wars with Britain, France, Spain, Mexico and Russia. In practice, expansion of Euro-American settlement culture westward also relied upon the ethnic cleansing of Aborigines and the labor of Afro-American slaves. By 1819, coastal territory was acquired in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. By 1848, the US Pacific coast was secured and recognized. In 1861, after decades of tension between the pro-slavery south and the abolitionist north, seven slave states seceded; shortly thereafter forming the unrecognized Confederate States of America and attacking the United States, thus beginning the American Civil War. After the defeat of the CSA, the seceding states were slowly integrated back into the union, and slavery was constitutionally abolished. In the mid-to-late 19th century, the Industrial Revolution radically reorganized American social structure, and precipitated the growth of the economy to Earths largest by 1870. This meteoric rise in industrial capacity also gave the US enough firepower to secure victory in the Spanish-American War and World War I, confirming its status as a leading martial force. However, the process also marked the beginning of globalization, including the associated rise in wealth disparity. This forced American culture to deeply reexamine notions of industrial and commercial freedom, especially with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. This process would remain a significant trend in American politics, even into the modern day. The United States formally entered World War II in 1941, declaring war on the Empire of Japan in response to their attack on Pearl Harbor, and in turn having war declared by then-allies of Japan, Germany and Italy. The war ended in 1945 after the Allied liberations of continental Europe and eastern Asia. Of all belligerent nations, the United States was the only one to come out of the war richer (indeed, far, far richer) than when it entered, and the only one at the time to develop and deploy nuclear weaponry. The remainder of the 20th century would be defined by the Cold War, a series of military confrontations, proxy wars, and technology races all revolving around the rivalry between the United States and the other post-WWII superpower, the Soviet Union. During this time, humanity began the process of exploring space, with the Soviets launching the first satellite and human, and America responding with the first manned mission and landing on Luna. As the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, the US consolidated its new central position in global diplomacy and economy. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st brought the Digital Revolution, again transforming American society for the more productive. This period also saw the rise and fall of neoconservative capitalism, starting with anticommunist reactionism of the 1980s, destabilizing after the Great Recession began in 2007, and finally ending by constitutional reform in the 2020s. Following the Flood, conflicts and economic upheavals of the late 21st century the US remained one of the world's two superpowers despite Earth's economic stagnation, and political turmoil, only rivaled by Mexico. Etymology In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. The former British colonies first used the country's modern name in the Declaration of Independence, the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America" adopted by the "Representatives of the united States of America" on July 4, 1776. On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" The Franco-American treaties of 1778 used "United States of North America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of America" was used on the country's bills of exchange, and it has been the official name ever since. When Mars and the moon were formally recognized as territories of the United States in 2054, some political etymologists began calling for changing the country's name to suit the fact that it was now a nation that occupied two distinctly different landmasses on two planets. These initial woes were brought up again after the annexation of the Anglosphere which brought Australia and the British isles into the Union. As of late, President Halvidar and the Union Party have been promoting the notion of America being more of an idea than a just physical territory, and the country should encompass those that subscribe to that idea. The short form the United States is also standard. Other common forms include the U.S., the USA, and America. Colloquial names include the U.S. of A. and the States. In the colonies, there is often a distinction made between the United States on Earth and the United States on Mars/Venus/etc. The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal apposition term, American and U.S. are more commonly used to refer to the country adjectivally ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States. The phrase "the United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States". History Native Americans and European settlers The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, migrated from Asia as early as 42,031 BCE as confirmed by chronoscope research. Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After Europeans began settling the Americas, many millions of indigenous Americans died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox, as well as general ethnic slaughter. The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, though Nordic, Chinese, and African explorers and small trade ships had been landing on the Americas from as Early as Ramesses II. In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, marking the first sustained travel to the Americas. On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he called "La Florida." Spanish settlements in the region were followed by ones in the present-day Mexican United States that drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful English settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. By the turn of the century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans, who were being displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were black slaves. Though subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain. Independence and expansion Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 through 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights," the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak central government that operated until 1789. After the British defeat by American forces assisted by the French Monarchy, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the Mississippi River. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those wishing to establish a strong national government, with powers of taxation. The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791. Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the African slave trade only until 1808, however, recent chronoscope data suggests that southern icons like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson partly opposed emancipation not just for their own financial constraints, but for the desire to gain political office, which would be difficult for a southern abolitionist. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution." The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism. Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars, which were largely driven by local militias and armed civilians. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, a provision delayed by American politicians who wanted to maintain the status que of slave-to-free states in spite of Texan cries to join the Union. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time. The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. instigated Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the Old Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 further spurred western migration. New railways made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures. Civil War and industrialization Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America. With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the American Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declared slaves in the Confederacy to be free, however it did not include those living in the North. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves, made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power. After the war, the assassination of Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed American culture. National infrastructure development spurred economic growth. The 1867 Alaska Purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the United States annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the Spanish–American War the same year demonstrated that the United States was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam remained U.S. territories until the Flood. World War I, Great Depression, and World War II At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many opposed intervention. In 1917, the United States joined the Allies, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers, and secure financial interests that lied with the Allies. After the war, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism. In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy. The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration. The United States, effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers as well as the internment of Japanese Americans by the thousands. Participation in the war spurred capital investment and industrial capacity. Among the major combatants, the United States was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war. Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war. The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war. Cold War and protest politics The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The United States promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Union promoted communism and a centrally planned economy. Both supported dictatorships and engaged in proxy wars. American troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment. The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the United States to be first to land "a man on the moon", achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement, symbolized and led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Bevel, used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963 at the hands of the CIA, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and others led a new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for women. As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, to avoid being impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power; he was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford. The Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities. His second term in office brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse ended the Cold War. War on Terror and the Great Recession Under President George H. W. Bush, the United States took a lead role in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War. The longest economic expansion since the 1950s—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Bill Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble. A civil lawsuit and sex scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of the closest in American history, was resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president. On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In response, the Bush administration launched the global War on Terror. In October 2001, U.S. forces led an invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continued to fight a guerrilla war until the middle of the Obama administration. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq to secure American energy interests, forming a Coalition of the Willing; coalition forces preemptively invaded Iraq in 2003, removing dictator Saddam Hussein. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina marked the beginning of the large scale environmental effects of global climate change, culminating in the Flood which drove a third wave migration into the underpopulated Western States. On November 4, 2008, amid the Great Recession, Barack Obama was elected president, and would lead the country through some of the worst crisis of its existence; expanding the size of government to meet the challenges of the day. The War on Terror began to come to a close by the start of the 2010s, as the Little Cold War escalated in Eastern Europe. This marked a period where US foreign policy began to reflect the reality of the position of the United States as the world's dominant power. This realization did not lead to the death of the Republic as many had feared, thanks to a series of political reforms in the late 2020s. The Flood, World War III, and Colonization Demographics The United States holds its cultural home on Earth, but spans a number of planets and many moons and space stations throughout the Sol system and nearby star systems. The US capitol of Washington DC is the Federal Capitol of the United States. Population The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the country's population now to be 3,801,324,512 including an approximate 675 million people living on Earth alone. The U.S. terrestrial population almost doubled during the 21st century, from about 300 million in 2000. The third most populous nation in the world, after China and India, the United States is the only major quantized nation in which large population (≥1 billion) occurred during the last century, and it remains the most ethnically diverse society in the system. About 82% of Americans live in urban areas; about half of those reside in cities with populations over 100,000. In 2128, 11 megalopolises were recognized by the US Census: Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Chicago and San Antonio. It should be noted, that the largest city in the country is New Richmond on Mars. Language English has been the de facto national language for most of the country's history, with Spanish being the only regional language, spoken throughout the Southwest, Caribbean, and Gulf Coast. Many secondary languages exist within American culture, including a number of Aboriginal tongues, and the native speech of several immigration waves throughout history. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some standards—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—favor English, but encourage multilingualism. Religion The United States is officially a secular nation: the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance. Terran religions are more common, but less diverse than in the colonies where society is generally more secular, but home to dozens of new faiths. The largest religious domination on Earth is Christianity (35.4%), with Roman Catholicism being the largest sect. Education American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of three or four (generally, pre-school or kindergarten) until they turn 13 (generally bringing them through ninth grade, the end of high school). About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 9% of children are homeschooled, though the term is relatively meaningless as most public education facilities are virtual. The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education, as well as local community colleges with open admission policies, all of which are subsidized by the US Federal Student Loan Fund, which provides anyone seeking higher education funding should they maintain satisfactory grades during the course of their enrollment. Of Americans 25 and older, 98.7% graduated from high school, 92.6% attended some college, 89.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 49.6% earned graduate degrees. The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%. This incredibly high standard of education is the result of the modern ability to download information directly to the brain, thereby reducing cost across the board and increasing availability. Health The United States life expectancy of 383.8 years at birth, while higher than the overall figure in Europe, but two years shorter than that of Japan. Over the past two decades, the country's rank in life expectancy has risen from 5th to 3rd in the world. Infant mortality has not existed since 2049. Approximately 4.5% of the adult population is obese and an additional 6.5% is overweight; the obesity rate, once the highest in the industrialized world, has dropped considerably since the banning of high fructose corn syrup and the birth of advanced genetics. Most diseases, have completely evaporated with the invention of grow-on-demand organs, GM drugs, and nano-robotics. Crime and law enforcement Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as appeals from state systems. Among developed nations, the United States has average levels of violent crime, gun violence and homicide, though this is more germane to the frontier worlds while the inner colonies and Earth are much safer. In 2072, there were 3.2 murders per 1,000,000 persons, 1/10th that of neighboring Gran Colombo. The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 72% between 2050 and 2073 with the legalization of nano-surveillance technology and much higher standards of living, has continued to steadily drop since. Gun ownership rights are the subject of contentious political debate, though the number of fire-arms owners in the US is still, on average, higher than any other country. The US legal system operates relatively quickly given the 2030s reforms to the US legal system. Violent crime is near instantly detectable given that most people's clothes can detect any external trauma ventured on the body, which is immediately transmitted to local heathcare providers. Once this trauma is detected, the countless number of micro-surveilance systems spread throughout the local police juristiction focus in on the subject and alert local law enforcement of the incident. The purpotrator's every move is tracked, and often times the police will simply let the suspect return to their home and simply retrieve them once they feel they've gotten away. Arresting officers will detain the suspect and transport them to a courtroom, a small 20th Century Jailcell sized room where the accused is brought before a virtual judge and a jury made up of online volunteers. Trials tend to last an hour on average and a virtual lawyer offers any possible defense by algorithmically scanning volumes of legal procedings, while the prosecuting attourney program simply shows the footage of the incident; cross examination is usually short given that the lawyer programs can instantly determine if the accused is lying based on the footage of the event, and genetic evidence gathered at the scene of the crime. If guilty, sentence is made on the spot by the virtual judge, who will either sentence the defendent to community service, a rehabilitation center, or prison. Rehabilitation centers have replaced conventional prisons for most offenses in the United States. The centers are places where therapists and neuroscientists try to decipher the why behind the crimes, and prescribe the most prudent way of rehabilitating the convicts. If the person simply has some kind of genetic predisposition to violence they are given the opportunity to learn to control it, failing that they are focably augmented to be less aggressive. If they have any kind of mental trauma, rehabilitation officers help them work through it as best they can. If they are simply in poverty they are sent to a skill training center to discover any hidden tallent or passion. Repeat offenders are extremely unlikely are given the effictiveness of counciling based on moder science's ability to scan and perfectly decipher the nature of a brain.. At the start of 2074, more than 250,000 people were incarcerated nation-wide, roughly one in every 4,000 adults. Recently Capital punishment has been abolished in the United States, like most nations. Since 2044, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty as unconstitutional, there have been some 1,000 people given stasis-sentences. Most violent criminals are sentenced to social-reconditioning or rehabilitation. Government and politics The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation as well as its first Four-Tier Republic. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law." The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to four levels of government, federal, planetary, state, and local; the state and local government's duties are commonly organized via online popular voting and computer subsystems that handle the treasuries and administrative duties. The US is organized as a Four Tier Republic, divided into Planetary Commonwealths, each with their own States; with each planet having their own houses of Congress that act as an off Earth extension of the US Congress. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens. There is no proportional representation at the federal level. The federal government is composed of three branches: *'Legislative': The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government. *'Executive': The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies. *'Judicial': The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional, though many of the lower courts' duties have been relegated to computers. The House of Representatives has 875 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the Commonwealths by population every tenth year. The Senate has 108 members with each Commonwealth having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is elected by direct vote. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who can serve for life, but must be re-appointed every ten years. The Commonwealth governments are structured in roughly similar fashion. The governor (chief executive) of each commonwealth is directly elected, but usually is given Viceroy powers by the President. Some commonwealth judges and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective commonwealths, while others are elected by popular vote. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review, and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution is voided. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended thrity-nine times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the seven most recent Amendments make up the Second Bill of Rights form the central basis of Americans' individual rights. 'Constitutional Amendments' 'Parties and elections' The United States had operated under a two-party system for most of its history, however during the popular reform movements of the late 2020s this system collapsed and a number of minor parties came about. For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 2032, the major parties have been the Progress Party, founded in 2028, the Conservative Party, founded in 2029, and the Libertarian Party founded in 1971. A number of minor parties have come into existance, on and off throughout the decades, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have been the only two that have continuously existed for much of the last century. Within American political culture, the Conservative Party is considered center-right, the Progress Party is considered center-left, and the Libertarian Party is considered to be a right wing reactionary party. The Liberal Party is considered to be a somewhat anachronistic liberal party, in that they advocate policies that appeal to laborers and rural voters. Political Divisions The United States is a federal union of eight commonwealths and hundreds of states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Early in the country's history, three new states were organized on territory separated from the claims of the existing states: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. Most of the other states have been carved from territories obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions comprises Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii: each was an independent republic before joining the union. During the American Civil War, West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The states do not have the right to secede from the union. In 2133 the 36th Amendment was passed to solve the problem of colonial administration. The individual states, almost entirely based off of online direct representation, had become too unruly to govern across multiple worlds. Representation was incredibly skewed, with the heavily populated states left to the mercy of the large number of Senators from the many underpopulated colonial states. To allow for fairer, more democratic representation, and a greater level of autonomy for the citizenry, the Second Bill of Rights established the Four Tier Republic, creating planetary Commonwealths, that would administer the states and in turn be administered by the Federal Government. The Second Bill of Rights reformed both the House of Representatives and the Senate to represent Commonwealths instead of states, while internal governance of the Commonwealths would be left up to local choice, though most chose online parlaiments. The Commonwealths do not have the right to secede from the Union. The Commonwealths and their states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the only other areas considered integral parts of the country are the countless space stations and moon-based colonies. These stations and colonies are classified as territories and districts. Those born in the major territories possess U.S. citizenship. American citizens residing in the territories have many of the same rights and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states; however, they are generally exempt from federal income tax, may not vote for president, and have only nonvoting representation in the U.S. Congress. Military The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and by the Department of the Navy during times of war. In 2128, the armed forces had 250,000 personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 520,000. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors. The US maintains a relatively small arsenal of 475 tactical nuclear weapons, most concentrated near the Mexican border, but has only used these weapons at the conclusion of the Second World War. Army: The US Army is now the smallest of the three branches of the military, and was primarily charged with patrolling the American Southwest prior to the Second Civil War. Navy: The US Navy consists of small light ships that handle close shore support, as well as a series of small interstellar cruisers that provide for tactical information gathering or if need be surface deployment or bombardment. All sea faring vessels are submergible and can be deployed from space. The DDG-3500 or Roughead class sea-cruiser is the standard large sea vehicle for close water support, while the Atlantis Class Space Cruisers provide support from space. Space Force Marine Corps: The US Marine Corps receives the same weapons and equipment as the Army, though they also act as the chief air support force upon the retirement of the Air Force. Currently a four aircraft air corps, utilizing the F-51 Mustang II, the A-24 Hailstorm, and the V-47 Vulture the Marines provide air-to-air, and air-to-ground support. All aircraft are capable of flying completely autonomously, though only the Vulture has a physical pilot.